i blurble chibikoma

Moko is a great Robo Builder. I recently posted his Orange Robo, but he has so many more that it's hard to put the spotlight on that one. Anyway, as highlighted on his blog, he has made a new Small Mecha frame. A while a go moko built a micro-scale tachikoma. I tried to ask him for instructions on his blog, using a crappy translator, but I guess he made sense of it (or some other guy asked how to make it), as he just posted instructions! It's awesome. I have one sitting on top of my computer right now.

In other news, I've invited Nick and Jordan (Kcaster and JordanN from CSF) into the blog! Jordan hasn't accepted yet, but Nick's here, and I'm sure he'll make his own introduction. Welcome, and I hope the blog benefiets from your presence! Also, we got a new pet, meet Godzilla jr!

Technorati tags: Lego Mecha Robo Tachikoma Micro Moko Gecko Flickr Brickshelf

Micro warfare and a fragile BFTT

Soren Roberts is infamous for perverted wisecracks, and gundam models. Occasionally he does other random bits, but he's all mecha. Adam Silcott I guess asked him to make something from Advance Wars, a series of take-turn strategy war video games. I own Advance Wars: Dual Strike for the DS. It's tons of fun, but apparently all Soren likes is the art. So without further ado, Chibi Troopers!
Cute, aren't they? I just want to bundle 'em up in a tackel box and play Advance Wars: Lego edition.
Also, Kevin Blocksidge ("Kevoh" to most) has made the third in his... black and yellow ship series! I got to see it at brickfest, but he didn't let me hold it because the long black thing sticking outta the bottom falls off easily. I love the round front, and the engines are totally awesome! I seriously need to use that as a booster design in a spaceship someday. I'm not so sure about the little yellow bits in some of the fins, but stripes would have been hard to do with the peices he used. I'm also amazed that he could fit a fig in there. Great job Keeeeevoh! 8.5/10 for ugly yellow bits and a fragile big fat fin thingy. Also, I finshed a bunch of steam/retro tech stuff recently. Check it out:
[Steam Chimney]
[Floating Rock]
[Flappters]

Technorati tags: Lego Advance Wars Chibi Ender Kevoh Kevin Blocksidge Soren Roberts Space

Steam Retro tech Flickr Brickshelf

Concepts

I've been posting quite frequently...don't expect that to keep up with the long posts I've been making. This one will be a bit shorter.

I tried last.fm out. It rocks. There's one big difference between last.fm and Pandora, that being the likeness of the music being played. In last.fm, it playes a genre of music, while in Pandora, it plays a certain style of music. I find myself not enjoying songs as much as I did while using Pandora, but the interfaces are nicer and you can share what you're playing with other people and such. I'll probably end up using last.fm more, but Pandora still is a good choice, and is a bit simpler if all you want is some good music, not good music, a music community, and lots of music info.

Brickshelf user hidaka has made a very sweet concept car. From the pics, it looks a lot larger than just 6 studs wide and 13 studs long. I'm horrid at getting that kind of effect, but his is great. It looks like the kind of car Bill Gates will drive in another 8 years or so. Kinda like an ultra-segway. Nice color use too, with the red blocking in the driver's seat, with a simplistic design. It just flows nicely together. 8/10 (in case you haven't noticed, I'll be doing short MOC reviews occasionally with an outta ten score near the end. I might end up doing set reviews too. Tomorrow I go to Toys 'r' Us, we'll see what I do then.)
Also check out hidaka's other cars, as well as all of his (I'm assuming it's a he anyway) keyboards and pianos and whatnot. Very nicely done, all of them.

Technorati tags: Lego Car Futuristic Concept Hidaka Flickr Brickshelf

Phil and Brickfest

Snoikle got an interview with Phil Painter (aka cerebruminc.) The interview is about his new ship, the ci LL928. It's so smooth in a studdy kind of way with a low profile armored kind of feel. I just loves it. Definately deserves. a 9.8 or so outta 10. Phil also posted an MRV (as he calls it) which is pretty cool, albiet being pretty simplistic. Probably Phil's most well-knows creation is his ci Maximum. It's a nice sleek racer ship (which was the main inspiration for my g2 Maximum.) I think he's had these for a while, but only now are the instructions up! Phil's the man. Especially because he's in Michigan with me :-D

I also have some brickfest '06 pics up if you want to see them. My flickr contact pages are crawling with other pictures, and some galleries are starting to pop up on brickshelf. Now as I've been to one however, it's really hard to capture the spirit of brickfest in just pics and nice words. You just kinda have to be there.

And something to all you flickr-ites. When you make a set of pics (through organizr) make sure you check out the set yourself, and click "make stuff," a button in the upper left. You can make calendars and mini-pic books through Qoop. You can also make those kind of things via other photo websites, like facebook and photobucket. Check it out.

And at brickfest, during a conversation with Jonesy, I learned about last.fm. Last.fm is similar to the Pandora web-radio I posted about, but it seems a lot better (haven't tried it out yet.) It scans your iTunes, and the songs you listen to, to make a station. Not a whole lot different, but it gives you more of a running start with it checking what kind of songs you like in vast quantities first off. I thought it sounded neat. I'll have more on that once I try it out (sometime this week probably.)

One last thing (as I suddenly realize how long this post is,) I'll be trying to integrate Technorati into my posts.

Technorati tags: lego space racer Bounty Hunter Brickfest Philip Painter Flickr Brickshelf Qoop Last.fm

Brickfest is upon us!

I leave tonight, and stuff starts happening tomorrow! WOW! Get ready people. I'm printing out my MOC cards now. I also have more stuff to talk about though...
Moko's new Orange Robo is just plain cool. it has a retro feel for it, along with great construction, and who can't adore some ORNJ?! The little minifig cockpit is great too, and the interchangable weapons, and the smoothness and the binocular eyes... It's just awesome! Even if you can't read them, click the links in the post I linked you too, those are the other pictures. I give it a 9.0/10, because the feet are too blocky for my tastes.

And for all those flickr addicts, I have a program for you! (assuming you have a mac, I don't, I tried it out at a friends house.) 1001 is a program that lets you more easily see what's going on in flickr, and lets you upload right from your desktop. You might also want to check out the two other programs on Kula, but they cost money after the first 21 days.

See you at Brickfest!

Just a Quicky

I added a bunch of Links to the nav bar, and a flickr badge with "lego"-tagged photos. If you have any submission for any section of the bar, I'd be happy to put yours up there! Currently there are just the ones I use. The Other links secion will mostly comprise of links I feature here in the blog. That's all for today!

Getting Started...Again

Welcome to the new Builder's Block Blog! I hope this one does better than the other did. It won't always be about lego though, it will be more about whatever I like, video games, music, and whatever else. The new adress is http://www.brickstuff.blogspot.com. Remember that, BRICK STUFF dot blogspot dot com.

So, to start things off, I'd like to include two things. One, Brickfest is in 4 days! Whoah! Don't forget about other after-hours activities too, like a parts draw, and the air and space museum trip. Then there are other random things, like the Giddens and Sandlin Bot Fight! Remember to print out your MOC cards too. I'll make sure I take tons of pictures and whatnot for those unlucky enough to not be able to come (like I was last year, I can't wait!!)
Next off, some thing non-lego. Pandora is awesome. You just put in a musical artist, or song that you really like, and it makes a "radio station" with songs or artists much like the one you used. It avoids the "no free music" law (that nobody seems to obey anyway) by playing songs you didn't ask for. It's like a really good radio station streamed right through your computer. Once you make an account (it's free!!) you can have up to 100 "stations" that you can manage (re-naming, re-choosing a song or artist, deleting, and whatever.) You should try it out. So far my favorite channels are ones made my using the songs "The Middle" by Jimmy eat world, and "Wonderwall" by Oasis.